Gender equality in education and learning: Children's Parliament report

Methodology

Children's Parliament takes a children's human rights-based approach, meaning our work

is guided by the principles and furthers the realisation of the rights of all children as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Children's Parliament engages with children in early years and middle childhood – from birth to the age of 14. For the purposes of this work, we engaged with 11 girls in primary school (P5-7) and seven girls in secondary school (S1/S2). Additionally, we worked with six boys in P5-7 to gather their views on the role of boys in achieving gender equality and how they can be effective allies. The diversity of children allowed us to include a range of cultural, religious, socio-economic and neurodiverse views.

Our approach was to engage children in small, facilitated conversations with Children's Parliament staff. Primary aged children were engaged in pairs while secondary aged children worked in small groups or one-to-one depending on their preference. We met with each group of children several times over the course of the project.

A prop was designed to structure the discussion along the lines of a Theory of Change model. Our aim was to use a model that closely followed the one used by the Gender Equality Taskforce to ensure the views of children and young people can be mapped against those of adults. It is in the connections made with children and young people's contributions that duty-bearing adults will evidence their commitment to the rights of the child.

Work with children was conducted face-to-face where possible, to allow them to feel more comfortable and confident to respond to quite challenging subject matter. Some secondary aged girls were engaged online, partly due to ongoing covid mitigations, as existing relationships and trust allowed us to explore the subject matter in a safe online environment.

To ensure anonymity, and in light of the complex and serious nature of much of what is discussed, we do not use the names of participating children nor the names of their schools.